AI emerges as powerhouse of China's economic development

China's artificial intelligence industry is galloping at a 30-plus percent annual growth clip, emerging as a powerhouse of economic momentum, the National Development and Reform Commission said on Friday.

China will ramp up efforts in independent innovation, bolster basic research and technological advancement, and accelerate the opening and sharing of data as well as the development of AI corpora, said Jiang Yi, spokesperson for the NDRC, at a news conference.

According to Jiang, to meet application-driven demand, China will speed up the planning and construction of national pilot test bases for AI applications.

It will further deepen cross-stakeholder collaboration across the industrial ecosystem, and advance coordinated innovation and efficient matching along the full industrial chain covering models, chips, cloud infrastructure and application scenarios.

Jiang, who is also director of the NDRC's policy research office, pledged that the commission would push forward with a long-awaited AI law, with the aim of balancing development with security.

Jiang said projections show that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30), investment in computing-network infrastructure could reach 4 trillion yuan ($550 billion).